Hylsaceae

Hylsaceae is a botanical name that is not recognized as a current family in major modern classifications. In contemporary systems such as APG IV, the name Hylsaceae has no stable circumscription and is generally regarded as obsolete or as a synonym of other families. The term has appeared in historical treatments of flowering plants, where different authors occasionally placed related genera in a family called Hylsaceae or used spellings interchangeably with Hylaceae. Because the groupings varied markedly among botanists in the 18th and 19th centuries, there is no consistent diagnostic concept associated with Hylsaceae in modern taxonomy.

As a result, modern databases do not list Hylsaceae as a valid family and do not provide a fixed list of genera for it. The name is of mainly historical interest, illustrating shifts in plant classification from morphology-based systems to phylogenetic systems.

Etymology and usage: the name is a Latinized formation; spellings and circumscription have varied, contributing to confusion with similarly named families.